Will The Gigafactory Go Up In Smoke?

Storey County’s Diamond Getting Roughed Up

I reached out to media pundit Josh Bernstein the other day and we talked about Elon Musk, Tesla and the Gigafactory. He’s done some reporting on Tesla and Elon Musk this year and he agreed to share his latest article with The Teller.

Storey County Commissioners recently ammended the Agreement with TRIC to forbid anything cannabis. Clinging their failed drug warrior mindset, McBride and Gliman insist that snowy wind-driven pureness blow over the county (drunk crawls and alcohol-induced vomiting on C Street excepted). With reports of Elon Musk’s Gigafactory being a hotbed for drug use and Elon the Magnificent burning hippie lettuce on the Joe Rogan show, Marshall McBride and Lance Gilman must be birthing small farm animals.

Will the Air Force condone Silicon Valley’s Drug Epidemic?

Is Elon Musk cracking under the pressure of his own grand delusions? One would certainly think so after the Department of Justice criminal investigation announced last week, as well as his recent late-night train wreck on The Joe Rogan Experience in which he smoked marijuana and looked every bit the part of someone who can’t seem to live under the pressure of his personal expectations.

Like a nineteen-car pile-up in front of a church on Sunday, the media was in a feeding frenzy. Every newsworthy outlet covered his appearance, and most were willing as ever to help write his obituary.

Many casual observers may see the coverage of Musk’s marijuana mishap as over the top and overblown. Taking a puff off a joint that was offered to him may seem like a lapse in judgment for a multi-billionaire who is the CEO of major companies, but it is hardly the worst thing he could have done.

What is getting lost in the conversation is that the FBI recently charged a SpaceX employee with running a major online illegal substances website while being employed by Elon Musk.

Drug Dealing At The Gigafactory

At the same time, a whistleblower claims that a Tesla worker sold a significant number of narcotics through the company’s Gigafactory. A Tesla and SpaceX board member also held a party that was said to have been filled with drugs and attended by Elon Musk himself.

So, the question is does Musk’s recent behavior, coupled with the allegations against his employees, present any potential investment consequences? Moreover, do the latest developments lend credibility and credence to the theory that Musk is helping to fuel what many experts are calling Silicon Valley’s growing drug addiction epidemic that is ruining lives and destroying families?

The Mercury News has been at the forefront in exposing the size and scope of The Silicon Valley’s drug problems. With constant stress, sometimes impossible deadlines, and repeated late-night work binges many employees of these big tech companies are resorting to rampant drug use to stay on task and focused. The kicker is that many of these companies know about it but look the other way. According to San Diego based substance abuse expert Steve Albrecht, “these companies want results and they don’t care how they get them.”

So how can we stop these Titans of Industry from skirting federal quality control standards? One tool the Federal Government has to pressure these corporate executives and force them to make their workers safety a priority is Federal Acquisition Regulation. These rules prevent government entities from hiring companies where people of power use illegal substances or refuse to enforce a clean, drug-free environment

One would think that to preserve the livelihood of young, intelligent, and ambitious Silicon Valley workers who will do anything to make it, the Air Force would step in and force Elon Musk to clean up his companies and himself or risk the loss of current and future government contracts. The truth is that in the past, other government entities have been complicit in allowing Musk to put his interests over those of everyone else.

Rockets (and Taxpayer Dollars) Go Up In Smoke

For example, this year NASA found Space X to be at fault for a 2015 rocket explosion, which seemingly occurred due to a rushed manufacturing job that lacked acceptable quality control standards. Where the more significant lies is that this information was kept secret for two years before it was revealed. Although NASA initially said it would investigate the explosion and released to the public what went wrong. When pressed two years later, they changed their tune and said they were not required to do so. This flip-flop came even though the agency issued a report from Space X competitor Orbital’s near carbon copy failure within six months less than one year prior.

Rather than NASA releasing a public report itself, SpaceX led its own investigation that predictably pointed blame at a supplier instead of internal operational issues. Perhaps due to this failure of NASA leadership, taxpayers again paid something for nothing as another Space X Falcon 9 rocket exploded 15 months later, crumbling a $205 million Facebook satellite.

Wasting money is a problem but wasting human lives would be a tragedy. Holding one set of rules for Elon Musk and one set of rules for everyone else has done enough damage to government budgets. Let’s not find out what it will do next to the hard=working Silicon Valley staffers battling for their lives with drug addiction.

The Air Force has an obligation and the ability to reverse these dangerous trends. It is critical that they do their job and enforce the law.

Josh Bernstein is host of The Josh Bernstein Show, a television news show featured on Amazon TV. Follow him on Twitter @jbtvshow